Chapter Text
“I see,” Roy Mustang said. A cloud covered the sun and the room suddenly got darker. “Well, this is actually good news.”
“Yeah, you know, I think I could have done without the interpersonal drama,” Edward Elric said. “It’s going to be super awkward.”
The boy punctuated his words with a half-grimace. He was sitting across Roy’s desk, his posture unusually rigid and serious, lacking his usual sprawl. The only other two people in the room were his brother, who sat next to him, and Lieuntenant Hawkeye. The lieutenant was behind her own desk but she’d stopped pretending that she was filling paperwork. Edward’s reveal that the serial killer Scar--the last airbender and unfortunately Edward’s only hope for a master--was the brother of one of his previous incarnations was a game-changing one. The fact that Roy and Hawkeye had witnessed that particular Avatar’s death, had watched his brother yell in grief and rage after the fact, wasn’t something to be dwelled on.
“If awkwardness is our only problem with Scar, then I’ll consider us lucky,” Roy said. “Before your discovery, we had no leverage to use on Scar. He might not have wanted to help the Avatar. His brother, though…”
“I’m not his brother,” Edward said, shooting a surreptitious glance at Alphonse. “I’m only one person’s brother.”
Alphonse smiled. He’d listened to the conversation with remarkable calm, but then Edward had probably told him everything beforehand and he’d had time to react to the information in private. “That’s sweet, brother,” he said, “but Colonel Mustang is right--if you can tell Scar who you are, then at least it’ll make him hesitate about killing you.”
“Thank the spirits for small favors,” Edward mumbled. “Any luck finding him, by the way? I’ve waited long enough to start learning airbending.”
The fingers of his flesh hand were rattling on the knee of his automail leg, his whole body thrumming with nervous energy. Roy had always known Edward in a hurry--in a hurry to get back on his feet after the fire that had cost him his arm and leg and Alphonse’s sight, in a hurry to master firebending, in a hurry to find an airbender who could teach him. Edward’s goal--to master waterbending so he could heal the damage on Alphonse’s eyes--was only one element away, and in the past year or so Edward’s urgency had taken on a desperate edge. If they couldn’t make Scar cooperate, then Edward would lose his only chance.
“Scar has so far managed to evade capture,” Roy said evenly. “But it’s only a matter of time before he strikes again, and then we’ll catch him. Don’t go anywhere without escort. You hear me, Elric?”
The boy flapped an unconcerned hand at him. “Yeah, yeah. Hearing you loud and clear, Colonel.”
The brothers left the office and Roy looked over at Hawkeye. “What are your thoughts on this new piece of information, lieutenant?”
“I agree with you that it might facilitate some things,” she said. “But it also might bring a whole other set of complications. Even if Scar cooperates, it’s going to be a very fraught relationship.”
“We don’t exactly have a choice.”
“I know.” Hawkeye joined her hands on her desk, her posture perfectly poised and controlled. “What’s the plan, Colonel?”
“What do you mean?”
“What’s the plan once Edward has mastered all four elements? Finding an airbender master was always the main issue. Edward is a quick learner, you know that--if this Scar person can teach him, then the day when he’ll fully be the Avatar is almost at our doorstep.” She lowered her voice to an almost imperceptible level. “Do you mean to use Edward to overthrow the regime?”
Roy winced at the question. If it had come from anyone else, he might have gotten angry at the implication. But when he’d convinced Hawkeye to come back to the army, this was the job he’d given her: she was to be the guardian of his path. The hard questions were hers, as well as the bullet that would bring him down if he ever lost his way. He signaled her to come to him so they could have this conversation in whispers.
“You know this regime needs to end,” he murmured to her. “The path we’ve been treading since the last Fire Avatar is wrong, and if we keep going like we have we will plunge the world in chaos.”
“I know that,” she said. She stood in such a way that, if someone were to catch a glimpse of them from the window at Roy’s back, they would think that she was delivering a report. “But I’m not sure that the Avatar is meant to be used that way. Edward, for the moment, is entirely focused on healing Alphonse, but it’s not going to always be the case. One day he’s going to start thinking about his role, and he might not see things the same way you do.”
At the end of the Ishval conflict, the only thing that had kept Roy’s head out of the water was the obsessive idea that if he could climb to the top, he could change the course of their country’s fate. Was Hawkeye right--was he using Edward for the sake of his own ambition? Meeting the boy had changed his outlook on a lot of things, made him put his personal aspirations into perspective. He no longer thought that he was the solution.
“I’m not considering Edward like a tool, if that’s what you’re fearing,” he said slowly. “For the moment, what matters is that Edward be allowed to realize his full potential. Both the Air Avatar and the Water Avatar have been stopped from doing it, and I’m… I think this has weakened the Avatar, and that the current state of the world is directly related to that.”
Hawkeye glanced down at him. “Have you been reading airbender literature, Colonel? Because I doubt that my father’s teachings would have spawned those theories.”
“I may have,” Roy said, addressing her a wry smile. “Lieutenant, your concern isn’t misplaced. But I have a feeling that whatever we decide now, our best laid plans won’t matter much in the end. When Edward has full mastery of his powers and, hopefully, has managed to heal Alphonse, we’ll discuss with him what he should do. As you said, he’s bound to have opinions about it. In the meantime, we have to find and arrest a dangerous serial killer, and hope he isn’t too unstable to teach Edward.”
---
“What about your escort, brother?” Al asked. “I think I remember very clearly that Colonel Mustang said ‘Don’t go anywhere without an escort, Elric.’”
Ed shot him an irritated look from over the book he held in front of him. The effect was lost on his blind brother, of course, but it made him feel better nonetheless.
“We’re in the library two blocks from HQ,” he said. “We’re well inside the military’s blue shadow. It’s fine.”
“I think you might just have jinxed us with those words,” Al said with a sigh.
Ed rolled his eyes at him, another pointless move, and directed his attention back to the book he’d just taken from its shelf. He had read a little about airbender culture in his father’s vast library, which had unfortunately been lost in the fire that had destroyed their house--Ed’s first firebending feat--but if he was about to face Scar, convince the man to trust him, and learn airbending, then he figured he needed to know more. Being a firebender and a dog of the army gave Ed access to the restricted areas of their library in East City, but even then there wasn’t much on airbenders, and even less on their culture. The winners of the Ishval conflict had pretty much crushed the insubordinates into oblivion. Ed had managed to find some accounts of the war that described the airbender monks’ bending and fighting style, mostly in private journals, and that was what he’d been reading for the past half-hour.
“Hey,” he said to Al after a long stretch of silent reading. “Now that’s interesting.”
Al tilted his head. “What is it?”
While Ed researched, Al had been reading too, albeit not with his eyes. He’d learned a tactile writing system that allowed him to read by brushing his fingers over series of bumps that represented letters. Ed didn’t know what book Al was reading right now, but he was almost sure Al had read it already; the library from the Harrington School for Blind Children, where Al borrowed his books, was pretty limited. Ed had tried talking to the school’s headmistress about what he could do to have more books made for his brother, but once she’d realized that he was with the army she’d refused to engage with him. Some books were probably better than no books at all, but it still didn’t feel right to Ed that his brother couldn’t join him in his research, so whenever he came across anything interesting he read it aloud to him.
“There’s a section about chi blocking,” Ed said. “I always thought that this was a non-bender technique, but listen to this: ‘The airbender monks have the oddest defensive technique: they can hit the body in a series of quick jabs and the victim’s muscles are rendered useless. When they do it to firebenders, they’re temporarily unable to use their power. I had never seen this before, but Winston tells me that the monks include this technique in their training because it’s a way to disable their opponent without harming them. Maybe it was how it used to be, but each time I’ve seen it applied the helpless victim has been slaughtered right after.’ This is from the journal of Cadet Albert Ford.”
“Is it the first mention of this that you’ve found?” Al asked.
“Yes, but there are a few other volumes that I’ve yet to get to. There’s so little left, though. It’s like the army has tried to make them disappear. Apparently it wasn’t enough that they’ve decimated the Ishval people and massacred all the airbenders but one.”
His hands tightened on the small leather-bound volume as he felt the anger bubble inside him, making his lungs feel tight and his blood boil. He dropped the volume, almost startled by the intensity of the feeling. Indignation wasn’t a surprising thing to feel--what Amestris had done to Ishval was pretty shitty--but the anger had felt deeper than it had any right to be. More personal, somehow.
“Brother?” Al said. “What’s wrong?”
Ed took a deep breath, trying to calm down. Of course Al would know he was getting upset--he always knew those things.
“I was feeling angry,” he explained. “I know, I know, it’s nothing unusual--but it felt kind of… I don’t know. I was angrier than I should be? It’s weird.”
“Do you think that you might be feeling what Khalid feels?”
“Something like that. Or maybe not; Khalid seems like a pretty chill guy. Maybe it’s rather… What I would feel if I had Khalid’s background. If the Ishval people were my people.”
Like Khalid and I were just one and the same. Ed didn’t say that last part, but Al probably heard the implication anyway. This reincarnation stuff was a mind trip and neither of them really knew what to do with it. Edward was Khalid and Khalid was Edward--but also not. They were the Avatar. Ed looked over at his brother, whose fingers were nervously roaming over the polished wood of the table. None of the other Avatars had been Al’s big brother; that, at least, was his alone.
“I’ll try to find more references to the chi blocking used by the airbenders,” he said. “You know, if we could learn how it works, what specific points to hit, then it could be an interesting way of applying earbending. The jab could be done with a rock rather than with a finger and it would turn chi blocking into a long-ranged technique. Maybe with waterbending too. Hey, do you think that the waterbending healing techniques are related to the chi blocking ones?”
“I guess that both have to do with the way chi flows in the body, so probably.”
That reminded Ed of something that their earthbending master, Izumi Curtis, had repeated often. “Everything that can be used to kill can be used to help,” he said out loud, exactly at the same time Al said it too.
They looked at each other--or rather, Ed looked at Al and Al turned his face to him--and they both burst out laughing. Their hilarity took a full minute to subside.
“I wonder how she’s doing,” Al said, suddenly wistful. “We haven’t visited her in a while.”
“Well, if we went to visit her then I’d have to tell her that I’ve joined the army. And then, she would simply kill me.”
“That’s true. But I haven’t joined the army, so I’d probably be safe.”
“Al, you traitor, you wouldn’t let me suffer on my own, would you?”
They were shushed by an irritate librarian when they started making too much noise with their bickering. Ed went back to his research and found a few other mentions of chi blocking being used by airbender monks, which proved that Cadet Ford hadn’t been talking shit. Hours flew by like nothing, and it was only when Ed’s stomach started to rumble loudly that he realized that it was way past lunch time.
“Oh, shit,” he said, “We missed lunch at the mess hall. We’ll have to grab it somewhere else.”
Al frowned. “We shouldn’t wander around without an escort. Let’s go back to HQ.”
“Aww, Al, I’m dying here.”
“Dying from missing one meal?” Al huffed. “Not likely. But I guess you need food to grow up properly.”
“Hey!”
This time they got evicted from the library after Ed tried to grab his brother into a headlock. Once in the street, they continued to argue about how far they could reasonably go from HQ to find food. The early afternoon sun was mild, and the heavy grey clouds that gathered in the sky made Ed wonder whether it was going to rain. Probably, because his ports ached and changes in pressure tended to have that effect on them. He absentmindedly rubbed around them, not that it would do much good--the pain came from a lot deeper than surface skin.
Some rain would be a good thing, Ed thought, because they hadn’t had any in a while and he could feel it in the dried, packed earth under their feet. He just hoped that the rain would hold back until they were back to HQ because he wasn’t keen on getting soaked. Then a shadow that had nothing to do with the clouds fell over him and Ed looked up, tensing against a sudden feeling of alarm.
A big man with brown skin and white hair loomed over him. His eyes were obscured by round sunglasses and two lines of white scar tissue crossed on his forehead. “Are you Edward Elric?” he asked in a deep, low voice.
“You’re--” Ed said, the dread inside him crystallizing into a solid ball of fear.
Before he had time to finish his sentence, a violent gush of wind came at him.
---
The first indication that Al got that something was wrong was the sudden spike in his brother’s heartbeat. The man who stood next to Ed was huge, and when Al heard him ask after Edward Elric, his heart dropped into his stomach and his palms started to sweat. He felt the wind and heard his brother cry out when he hit a wall. Some bystanders exclaimed in surprise and fear, and Al thought dimly that if they could stall for a few more minutes Mustang would come to their rescue. As Ed had said, HQ was only a couple blocks away.
“Wait,” he said. “Ed is--”
Scar--because who else could it be--whirled around to him. Ed had read to Al about airbending and its signature circle walking, and some analytical, curious part of himself took note of it in Scar’s steps. Ed’s readings had also said that airbending was mostly defensive and centered around evading and eluding the opponent, but then Scar sliced the space in front of himself and Al, too slow to recognize the attack for what it was, felt his shoulder erupt in pain.
“Leave him alone!” Ed’s voice sounded tight, but not too pained. “He’s not a firebender!”
Ed, you moron, Al thought when Scar directed his attention back to his brother. Al couldn’t earthbend, not in the middle of East City with plenty of people to witness it. Fortunately, Izumi Curtis had been of the mind that one shouldn’t rely too much on bending and had taught them to fight without it. Al used his white cane as a weapon and struck Scar behind the knees. There was a narrow alley right next to them and if they could lure him into it, out of sight of curious onlookers, then maybe they could use earthbending without risk.
Ed must have had the same thought, because after a rush of flames he dashed toward the alley. Scar followed him, seemingly disinterested in Al. The man was quick and nimble for his size, and obviously a very experienced fighter. Ed could barely do more than avoid the devastating power of his air blasts and slices, so Al plunged into the alley too, throwing his cane to the side. He spread his feet apart, closing his fist and drawing back his elbow to get a grip on the stone around them, but Scar managed to dodge the earthspike that he’d created. The man made a surprised sound at the sudden earthbending and spun around to face Al again. Al ducked to avoid the next air slice, but the maddening way Scar moved was unfamiliar and made it difficult to anticipate his attacks.
The air in the alleyway heated up from a fire blast. “Al!”
Scar was in Al’s space before he could do more than blink. He felt a pressure at the juncture between his shoulder and neck, then at a few other points in quick succession. Suddenly, the world around him contracted itself and he couldn’t move. Unable to keep himself up, he flopped onto the cold hard ground like a dead fish, painfully hitting his chin in the process.
“Al!” his brother yelled again. “You asshole!”
“I’m fine, brother, this--this is just chi blocking,” Al said with difficulty, his face pressed against the ground.
It wasn’t fine, though, because Al couldn’t move, couldn’t see. The permanent darkness around him had become desperately empty, and Al’s breath started coming out in short, panicked pants. He was helpless, truly blind, and his brother was still fighting. The only sense Al could rely on was his hearing, and what it told him wasn’t good: he could hear the air rushing and whistling, and the grunts from the fighters, but he couldn’t feel any heat or any quiver from the earth, because Scar wasn’t giving Ed any time to firebend or earthbend. The sounds from Ed told Al that his brother was getting tired and frustrated, and then he heard metal clanking, something creaking. Please, let it not be the automail. No bender could bend with one arm.
“Scar!” Al tried to shout. “Don’t do this! Ed is the Avatar! He’s the Avatar!”
But with the way his face was turned his cries were directed to the ground and Scar probably couldn’t hear him. He was likely entirely focused on his fight with Ed and had dismissed Al as unimportant. Al’s heart was hammering in his chest and his head was swimming. Even without his earthbending, he could follow the fight well enough to know that Ed couldn’t win. That huge, murderous airbender was going to kill Al’s brother while Al was sprawled on the ground like a useless slab of meat.
Al, I’m the Avatar.
I will heal you, Al. I’m making you a promise, okay? One day, you will see again.
Okay, Ed, I believe you. You’ll learn all four elements. You’ll be the greatest Avatar ever.
“Brother,” Al whimpered against the stone. “Brother, run away!”
Ed wasn’t running away, of course. He wouldn’t, not if it meant leaving Al behind, paralyzed and defenseless. But suddenly Al heard something that alarmed him even more than the fight’s sounds: his brother, choking, while the air made an awful sucking sound. When Mustang had described Basque Grand’s very public death, he had told them that Scar had formed a ball of air around the firebender’s head, vacuuming all the air out of his lungs. Al pictured the scene with Ed’s head inside the ball, Ed’s hands desperately clawing at his throat.
“No!” he shouted.
Ed’s path as the Avatar had just started and Al wouldn’t believe that it could end like this, in a back alley, before he’d even mastered all the elements. He fought furiously against the paralysis, trying to raise his head from the ground. He managed to move it, but not by much.
“Brother! Brother!”
---
The sound of air rushing at his ears was deafening. Can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t breathe. His lungs hurt from the violence done to them as Scar tore all of his air out. His vision was blurred by tears. But he could feel the earth under himself, his consciousness having run there to escape the terrible agony Scar was inflicting on him. Down there it was cool, solid and quiet.
How can I die like this? I promised Al I would heal him!
His left hand was clutching uselessly at his chest, because he couldn’t quite make his automail hand move, but he forced it down, curling his fingers against his palm into a fist. Without breath he couldn’t firebend at all, but the earth was still there at his command, all around him and under him. Scar, of course, didn’t know it was even a possibility. Ed pulled his hand upward, taking hold of the stone and pushing it at the airbender.
All of a sudden air rushed back into his lungs as painfully as it had been extracted. Ed’s knees buckled and he fell down on all four, gasping and coughing and still not fully convinced that he wasn’t going to die. His purpose had vaguely been to hit one of the points on Scar’s body that he’d seen him hit on Al, hoping to disturb his chi. When he looked up, though, his vision still very blurry, he saw that Scar seemed to be moving just fine, but that his attention was entirely on the spike of stone that Ed had created.
“What the spirits is this?” he growled.
He turned to Al, but Al was still lying face down on the ground, unmoving. Even though Ed knew that the effects of chi blocking were supposed to be temporary, it terrified him to see his brother like this.
“It was me,” Ed rasped, wearily hauling himself up to his feet. He ached so much, and from everywhere, that it was hard to tell if he was seriously injured. He tried to make his automail fingers move, and they did, but not as promptly as they should have. “Motherfucker. If you’d let me--would’ve explained--”
Ed blinked and his vision finally cleared, enabling him to see the look of utter shock on Scar’s face. He’d lost his sunglasses at some point and his eyes were just as red as Khalid’s, and looking at Ed like he was some sort of anomaly made flesh.
“You earthbent,” Scar said. “And you firebent. This is impossible.”
Ed coughed; his mouth tasted like copper and he had the remote thought that this probably wasn’t a good sign. “Are you dense--or what? Of course it’s possible. You of--of all people should know.”
“He’s the Avatar!” Al had managed to lift his head off the ground and his voice was shrill. “The Avatar, and you were going to kill him!”
“No,” Scar said. His voice rumbled like an earthquake. “You belong to the army.”
“Didn’t have much choice, once my--firebending abilities manifested. Was an earthbender--first, though, just like my brother.”
Scar’s whole body was shaking, and on someone so big it looked like a natural disaster in the making. He threw his head from side-to-side in furious denial.
“It’s true,” Ed insisted. “I’m the Avatar, so that means I’m--”
“No.”
“--your brother’s reincarnation, and--”
“No.”
Urgent voices echoed at the end of the alley and Ed could see blue-clad silhouettes advance toward them.
“Listen to me,” he whispered to Scar. “You have to let them arrest you. I promise you’ll be fine. I have an ally in the army. You’ll be fine, but I need an airbender master and you’re the only one left. Feisal, you have to trust me.”
Ed had hoped that using Scar’s real name would help, but it actually seemed to have the opposite effect. Scar’s features locked into a mask of fury and he roared, “Don’t speak that name!”
For a second, Ed thought that Scar was going to attack him again, but the man spun his hands and the air lifted him. He bounced against one wall, then against the opposite one, until he could jump to the roof. The soldiers fired at him but it didn’t look like they’d managed to hit him. Scar disappeared out of sight and the soldiers yelled at each other directions to go after him.
Ed ignored the commotion and staggered to his brother’s side. His lungs ached, each breath burning like fire, and the fingers of his right hand still didn’t respond the way they should, but those were all problems to worry about later, once he was sure that Al was okay.
“Al.” He scooped his brother in his arms, wincing when it jostled some of his injuries. “Are you all right?”
Al was leaning against Ed with his whole weight, but his voice was free of pain when he answered. “Yeah, I just can’t move. You?”
“I’m fine.”
“He was--he was killing you.”
Ed’s lungs tightened at the memory and he started coughing dryly.
“Brother?”
Getting enough air to talk was hard, but Ed eventually managed to say, “He didn’t.”
“You should’ve run away.”
“And leave you behind?” Ed exclaimed, incensed at the thought. It triggered another coughing fit and he couldn’t get out the rant he wanted to have on the topic.
“Edward? Alphonse?”
This was Lieutenant Hawkeye, and Ed was privately ashamed at how relieved he was to see her, even if the threat had passed. If Mustang had been there too, he may have launched into a complaint about how late they were to the party, but he wasn’t sure he had enough breath for it and shouting at Hawkeye felt subtly wrong.
“Are you two all right?” she asked, kneeling next to them. “Alphonse? What’s wrong with you?”
“Chi blocking,” Ed said shortly. He figured that since she’d served in Ishval, Hawkeye would know what he meant.
Indeed she nodded, looking relieved. “Then he’ll be all right. What about you, Edward?”
“I’m okay.” He stifled a cough. “You better go after Scar.”
“We’re handling it. The colonel wanted me to check on you.”
“Scar didn’t seem to be--in a cooperative mood,” Ed said, trying to convey with his eyes a little more than that.
Hawkeye’s expression darkened. “You’ll have to do your report to the colonel. But first, let’s get you two to a hospital.”
---
Ed had hoped that their trip to the hospital would be a quick one, but he had no such luck. Half-an-hour after the fact, Al started to regain his motor functions, and he managed to communicate to Ed that his earthbending was back too. They both had various cuts and bruises that were easily treated, but the doctors worried about the damage to Ed’s lungs. Ed hadn’t stopped coughing since the fight and he felt short of breath even when he was at rest, but he’d rather hoped that it would just go away on its own. The doctors, who tended to be worst-case-scenario kind of people, wanted to keep him on observation. In the meantime they were treating him with oxygen, and it hadn’t taken long for Ed to develop an acute claustrophobic feeling from the face mask that delivered it.
“It’s just a little cough!” Ed raged, his voice distorted by the mask. Annoyingly, he had to pause then so he could cough. “I’ll recover just as well at home!”
“The barracks are hardly the ideal place to recover from anything, and if the doctors want to keep an eye on you then I tend to favor their opinion over yours,” Mustang said from his spot on the right of Ed’s bed. Al sat on his other side, not saying anything. “Now, your report, Elric.”
Ed’s status as a Major had granted him a private room and Hawkeye was guarding his door, so this was as safe as they were going to be. Ed narrated the fight in a few, terse sentences--there wasn’t much to say, and Ed wasn’t thrilled to relive how he’d totally fucked up his one chance at an airbender master. Could he try to learn waterbending without having learned airbending? Tradition said that the Avatar had to learn the elements in a certain order: Fire came after earth, and water came after air, the way summer came after spring and winter came after autumn. This was how the Avatars cycled too. But was it just ritual bullshit or was there a real reason to it? So much about the Avatar had been lost or was unavailable to him.
“Realizing I’m the Avatar hasn’t made Scar rush to my side,” Ed said bitterly.
“I never thought he would be so easy to convince,” Mustang said, although he was frowning. His frown deepened further when he added, “What I want to know, is what you were doing out in the street without your escort.”
Ed’s eyelid twitched. “I was just going to the library,” he mumbled, looking down to his mismatched hands on the white hospital sheet.
He braced himself for a lecture both from Mustang and his brother, but Al still wasn’t speaking--his hands gripped his cane tightly and his face betrayed nothing. As for Mustang, he only heaved a put-upon sigh.
“I’m going to assign someone to your protection. You’ll have a lot of trouble shaking off that particular escort,” Mustang said mysteriously. “You’ll stay here until your mechanics arrives. Have you called her yet?”
“Not yet.” Now was another conversation that Ed didn’t look forward to. Winry was going to murder him.
“See that you do it quickly. I’ll keep you updated on our progress looking for Scar.”
Mustang and Hawkeye left, but not without putting some soldiers to guard Ed’s door. One of them was Havoc and he laughed at Ed’s grumpy face.
“Looking rough, chief,” he said, chewing on the end of an unlit cigarette. “I heard that you got your ass kicked by that serial killer.”
Ed scowled until the man retreated to the hallway. Left alone with Al, Ed glanced at his little brother’s stoic face.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Al answered, a little more snappish than was usual.
“Come on, I know you better than that. Are you mad at me because I ditched my escort? I’m sorry. It was stupid of me.”
“I’m not--It’s not that.”
“Are you still feeling side effects from the chi blocking?”
“No.” As a demonstration, Al lifted a hand and flexed his fingers. “I feel fine.”
“Hmm.”
Ed wanted to say more, but when he opened his mouth and let air in to speak, he started coughing instead. Then he fell back against his pillows, feeling more drained than he had any right to be after such a short fight, like his bones had been turned into water. Al would speak when he was ready. Most people saw him as the kind, quiet one, but in truth he had a temper too, although it was less obvious and harder to rile than Ed’s.
“Gah, I guess I have to call Winry now.” Ed irritably fiddled with the elastic strap that held his oxygen mask in place. His lungs itched with the urge to cough again. “What a pain.”
“We haven’t seen her in a long time,” Al said quietly.
Ed looked at him, at the unhappy pull of his mouth, and felt a sharp stab of guilt. Nothing forced Al to stay in East City; he wasn’t part of the military, after all, and was free to go where he pleased. It was even dangerous for him to be too close to the authorities in case someone discovered his earthbending abilities. Resembool was a backwater place that only saw a soldier once in a blue moon; he would be a lot safer there. But Ed knew from experience that if he said that to his brother, all it would do was to make him angry.
“I’m sure she’s just the same as ever,” he said. “Bossy and an automail nerd.” His words had the merit of making Al smile faintly, so he complained louder, “I can hear her already, ‘What did you do to my precious automail? How could you be so careless!’ Well, I’m sorry, but when a mad airbender attacks me I have to defend myself!”
“I’ll be good to see her,” Al said.
Ed sighed and looked out the window at the cloudy sky. “Yeah,” he said softly.
---
As Roy had expected, the news of Scar’s attack on Edward Elric had a few members of Central’s Investigations Office come to East City wagging their tails. What Edward didn’t realize in his frustration at how his confrontation with Scar had gone, was that he was the first person to have fought the man and survived. That, in itself, was remarkable, but also attention that Edward didn’t need. Among the investigators was Roy’s old friend Maes Hughes, and Roy already knew that he would be discussing the event at length with him over dinner. He would probably have to reveal the truth about Edward to Maes, but he’d always known that this day would come and he was sure that Maes had an inkling about it anyway. But right now, Roy had another target in mind.
He was able to spot the towering silhouette of Major Armstrong from afar. The man was hard to miss with his gigantic stature and his gleaming bald skull that sported a single loop of blond hair.
“Major Armstrong,” Roy said once he was within speaking distance. He schooled his features into an expression of bland pleasure at having come across an acquaintance. “It has been a while.”
“Colonel Mustang!” Armstrong said in his thundering voice. “I has been too long indeed.”
“Would you mind walking with me?” Roy said. He drummed his fingers on the stack of documents he carried against his chest. “I have to get these signed, and it would give us time to catch up.”
His size and his bubbling personality might make most people dismiss him, but Roy knew that Armstrong was a sharp man. The blue eyes only narrowed a little before he said genially, “What a good idea!”
They chitchatted about nothing of consequence until they were crossing the vast courtyard that would lead them to the Treasury building. Then, keeping his expression relaxed and unconcerned for the benefit of whoever might be looking at them, Roy said, “Have you had the time to read the report on Edward Elric’s fight with Scar?”
“Yes. That boy was extremely lucky.”
“It wasn’t just luck, although I agree that Elric tends to have extraordinary luck. I guess you could say that he has been blessed by the spirits. Born on an auspicious day, you see.”
Roy quickly glanced to Armstrong, just to check whether his words had landed right. Major Armstrong took a sharp breath. “Surely you don’t mean--”
“I mean exactly that, Major,” Roy said, staring straight ahead. In a low voice, he quickly narrated to Armstrong the circumstances that had surrounded his first meeting with the Elrics. “This all happened four years ago.”
“Those poor boys,” Armstrong said tremulously, and Roy knew from experience that the compassion in his voice wasn’t faked. “They’re so young and they’ve already known so much tragedy.”
“Edward’s life is unlikely to get any easier, and neither is Alphonse’s if he persists in binding his fate to his brother’s. Anyway, you will understand that I’m greatly interested in Scar: he’s Edward’s only chance at an airbending master. For the moment, only myself, Lieutenant Hawkeye and you know about Edward. I’m planning to tell Lieutenant Colonel Hughes too, because if we manage to find Scar we’ll need access to him so he can teach Edward--that is, if we can obtain his willing cooperation.” Roy smiled wryly. “At this point it’s very tempting to force his hand, but I’m afraid that this would go against the spirit of the whole enterprise.”
“I’m afraid it would.”
“Major, I’m sure you know why I took the risk to share with you this very sensitive piece of information.”
Armstrong stopped in his tracks in the middle of the courtyard. “Colonel, this would be an honor,” he said solemnly.
Roy couldn’t help but breathe a small sigh of relief. He wouldn’t have taken the risk of telling Armstrong the truth if he hadn’t been sure of his reaction, but it was good to have one less thing to worry about. Counting the seconds in his head--one moment too long, and if someone had been observing them they would wonder about the topic of their conversation--Roy replied in the same tone, “No, Major, the honor is mine.” Then he resumed walking.
“There’s still time before my help is needed, though,” Armstrong said. “Why tell me this now?”
“Ah, Major, this is because in the meantime I have an assignment for you: you will serve as the Elrics’ new escort until we’ve managed to catch Scar. Don’t tell Edward that you know who he is for now. Your job will just be to make sure that he doesn’t wander off by himself again.”
Armstrong responded with ready enthusiasm, and Roy allowed himself to picture the major handling Edward for his own private amusement. That little brat had always been careless with his safety and was probably the reason for each white hair on Roy’s head, but he was going to pay for it now. Oh, to be a fly on the wall for that first meeting!
---
Ed’s phone call to Winry had gone just as well as he’d expected, and it had put him in a foul mood. The oxygen therapy was over and he was now free to pace the length of his room even though the doctors had told him he should rest, but for once Al didn’t feel like bullying his brother into behaving. Since the fight he’d been feeling strangely numb, all his emotions muted and colorless. He should have been sick with worry about the doctors’ pronouncement that Scar had damaged Ed’s lungs, but instead all he could think was, Breathing is fundamental to firebending. Maybe it would be better if he couldn’t firebend anymore.
Ed couldn’t be the Avatar if he didn’t couldn’t bend all the elements. If he couldn’t firebend, maybe he would get discharged from the army. They could go back to Resembool and--Al shook his head, trying to clear the fog that addled his thoughts and feelings. Ed becoming the Avatar was something he’d put his faith in years ago; it would be a tragedy if everything they’d been through amounted to nothing in the end. But the sounds of Ed’s fight with Scar while Al lay there uselessly wouldn’t leave him alone. They kept playing in his head, again and again, like a broken record. It felt like he couldn’t worry about Ed’s health or about anything else in the present because his mind was stuck listening to his brother dying.
“Hey, Al! Are you listening to me?”
Ed sounded annoyed enough that he must have been calling for a while. Al sighed, forcing himself to pay attention to his surroundings. They were alone in the room, although there were still guards at the door. Ed had stopped his pacing and was standing close.
“What is it, brother?” Al said wearily.
“Seriously, what’s wrong with you? I tried giving you some space, but you’re acting really weird and I’m getting worried. Did you get hurt somewhere and not tell me?”
“No, Ed, that’s your thing,” Al said a little more harshly than he’d intended. “And didn’t the doctors tell you that you should be resting?”
“Okay, now you’re sounding a little more like yourself,” Ed said instead of retaliating with a biting retort of his own. He actually sat down on the edge of his bed, maybe as a compromise, or because he was getting a little out of breath. “What’s on your mind, really? Talk to me.”
Talking to Ed wasn’t the problem; they’d been each other’s main interlocutor for their whole lives. No, the problem was to put into words what troubled him. He wasn’t sure what to say. Was it just that he’d been so scared that Ed would be killed that he couldn’t think past it? Was it the memory of his total helplessness that wouldn’t leave him alone?
What came out was, “Are you still going to learn airbending from Scar?”
“I… guess so. I mean, if they can catch him, and if I can convince him to help me. I was thinking of asking Khalid for help, but I’ve never had to try to talk to him before, he’s always talked to me first, so--”
“But he tried to kill you!”
“Scar? No shit he did! But I don’t have exactly a ton of other potential teachers lining up.”
“But--but--”
“But what?”
“What if you didn’t learn airbending?” Al’s fists were closed so tightly that he could feel his nails digging into his palms. “I mean, I know that the Avatar has to learn all the elements, but wouldn’t three elements be enough? That’s already two more than anyone else can!”
“Oh, Al.” Ed walked up to him and rested a hand on his shoulder; Al realized then that he was shaking, his breathing stuttering in his chest in an uncontrolled way. “I know I’ve made you wait for too long. I promise you, if we don’t find Scar quickly then I’ll start looking around for a waterbending teacher, and--”
“What? It’s not what this is about!” Al felt angry now, and he was grateful for a feeling that stood out in the murkiness he was bogged down in since yesterday. He shoved at Ed’s hand, making him let go. “Stupid brother! I don’t care about my eyes if you get yourself killed!”
“Al--"
Ed didn’t have the time to say more, because someone knocked on the door and entered.
“Ed? Al? Am I coming at the wrong moment? I heard shouting.”
“Ah, Lieutenant Colonel Hughes, come in,” Al said, ashamed that he’d been heard and relieved that his conversation with his brother was cut short. “It was nothing. Ed and I were just talking.”
“Don’t you have enough work to keep you busy in Central?” Ed said.
“Oh, but I’m here on official business! That incident with Scar.” Al’s stomach twisted at the mention. “I wanted to check on you boys.”
“We’re fine,” Ed said, and coughed.
“Roy told me Scar did some damage to your lungs,” Hughes said sympathetically. “I know that being stuck at the hospital is a pain, so I thought that it would do you two good to hear about my darling Elicia!”
Hughes tended to shower people with photos of his daughter but with them he stuck to cute anecdotes, probably mindful of Al’s blindness. They learned all about the preparations for Elicia’s third birthday party, about the new words Elicia had learned--‘She’s so smart!’--, and about her recent fancy for orange food. Despite Ed’s grumbling, Al found the rush of words soothing. There wasn’t much Hughes expected them to do but nod and exclaim at the right places. Also, Elicia did sound adorable and Al hoped he would be able to see her one day. But not if it costs you your life, brother. Some things are more important to me than getting my sight back.
“I hope I’ll be back in time for Elicia’s birthday!” Hughes said. “With Scar on the run and the riot in Lior--”
“What?”
Ed started coughing and wouldn’t stop. He folded himself in two and was forced to sit back on the bed, with Hughes unhelpfully patting him on the back. Al got up and poured his brother a glass of water that Ed grabbed eagerly. While he tried to get his cough under control, Al asked the question that was probably on his mind, “What do you mean, a riot in Lior? When we left, my brother had exposed the fake Avatar Cornello. It looked like the people of Lior had it under control.”
Hughes’ voice was serious when he answered, “I see, Roy hasn’t told you. I apologize, Ed, I should have taken your health into account.”
“Just tell me--now,” Ed said, his voice rough from coughing. “Said--too much already.”
“After you exposed Cornello, things were quiet in Lior for a while. But Cornello came back and managed to convince some people that you’d fooled them, Ed, and that he really was the Avatar. Soon enough the people supporting Cornello as the Avatar and the people who didn’t were at each other’s throat. The army had to intervene and is now in control of the city.”
“Did a lot of people die?” Al asked hollowly.
“It’s under control, now, but--yes. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t get it,” Ed mumbled. “He was pretty thoroughly humiliated. I thought he’d run away. Why did he come back?” He drank another sip of water. “Was he arrested?”
“No, he slipped through our fingers,” Hughes said. “Some of his supporters must have helped him escape.”
“Do you think he’s going to come after Ed?” Al asked, cold fear gripping his heart.
“I don’t know. It’s a possibility. But with your new escort, I’m not too worried about you.”
“Who’s my new escort?” Ed asked, his voice laced with suspicion. “Mustang said something weird about it and I don’t trust the bastard as far as I can throw him.”
“He should be here soon.” Someone knocked on the door right at that moment. “Oh, look at that. Perfect timing. Come in, Major Armstrong!”
Al focused on the new comer and his mind boggled at how big the man was. He was so big that he had to bow his head to enter and his shoulders barely fit in the doorway. He must have been even bigger than Sig, their master’s husband.
“What the spirits--” Ed croaked.
“Edward Elric!” a voice boomed. Ed made an unarticulated squeaky sound. “What an honor to meet you! My name is Alex Lous Armstrong, from the illustrious Armstrong family!”
The man lunged forward and Ed scrambled off the bed, falling into a firebending defensive stance. Al stepped between him and the major to prevent a disaster from happening. Colonel Mustang would be extremely annoyed if Ed fried his new escort.
“Wait, brother! I’m sure that the major didn’t mean to--”
“Alphonse Elric!” Al startled at the sudden call of his name. “It’s a pleasure to meet you too! Such a faithful brother!”
Before Al had the time to brace himself, he felt solid arms the size of his legs wrap around him and squeeze him against a massive chest. All the breath was forced out of his lungs and Al’s ribs screamed in protest.
“Hey, leave my brother alone!”
Major Armstrong released Al and Al gratefully breathed gulps of fresh air, dimly wondering if this was how his brother had felt when Scar had stolen the air from his lungs. Hughes’ visit had managed to make him not think about it for a good ten minutes, but now the sounds of Ed’s choking were back, playing in a loop in his mind.
“Al, are you okay?” Ed’s warm flesh hand pressed against the nape of his neck and Al leaned into it. He’s alive, he’s alive, and I will not let this happen again.”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Hughes,” Ed said, “tell me this crazy guy isn’t the escort that Mustang assigned me.”
“I can already tell that this is going to go great!” Hughes said cheerfully. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to you leave you to it. I have to track down Roy.”
Hughes left like a gust of wind, cackling madly about something. Armstrong didn’t seem in the least offended by Ed’s rudeness, but he also wisely didn’t try to hug him again. Al let himself relax a little; the various visits had helped him shake off some of his numbness, and he felt a renewed motivation to watch his brother’s back. He only needed to get stronger and not let Scar get past his guard again.
---
He retreated to the sewers and lived there like a rat for several days. It wasn’t the first time that he’d used the underground as a refuge, and he’d come to find a certain measure of comfort in it. His native land was all open spaces, sun and warm air, but it was out of his reach. He wasn’t worthy of this spirits-blessed place anymore, and it was fitting that he found himself roaming dark stinky tunnels. His realm was darkness, now.
The Avatar. He’s the Avatar and you were going to kill him! Bent on survival and on escaping the army, Scar had managed not to think about the two golden-haired boys for a few days. They didn’t look Xingese, and yet the one that was in the army, Edward Elric, had said that they were earthbenders. The inconsistency should have made Scar dismiss his claims, but earthbending had definitely happened during that fight. Maybe it had been the other boy, even though Scar knew that his mastery of chi blocking was precise and that the boy shouldn’t have been able to do any bending yet. Still, this was more likely than the alternative. Edward had said that the other one was his brother, but maybe the boys were of mixed descent. It would explain why they didn’t look Xingese.
But every time Scar came to that point in his reasoning, comforted by how much sense it made, the boy’s voice echoed in his mind: ‘Feisal, you have to trust me’. How could he have known his name? The name that he’d forsaken, not even using it in the privacy of his own mind? He hadn’t told the soldiers his name when he’d been a prisoner after his brother’s death. He knew that the army had nicknamed him ‘Scar’ because they ignored his true identity. But that boy, that fierce yellow-eyed boy who had somehow managed to firebend and earthbend, knew how he used to be called. That, and more.
You of all people should know.
I’m the Avatar, so that means that--
A scraping sound forced him to break this trail of thoughts, putting him immediately on alert. He was more than familiar with the scuttling of rats in the sewers, and this had come from a much larger being. Then he heard footsteps, from one, no, two people. They didn’t sound hurried and there were no voices, so they probably weren’t the soldiers who were after him. He wasn’t the only one who used those tunnels as a hiding place, and the etiquette for such encounters was generally to amiably ignore each other. Still, it always paid to be careful, so Scar bent at the knees and raised his arms in preparation.
There was no light in the tunnel and Scar had gotten used to relying only on his hearing, so he was startled when he heard a scratching sound and then a sudden flame broke the darkness. His first, instinctive thought when he saw the flame was, ‘a firebender!’ but it didn’t take even a second for him to realize that someone had simply scratched a match.
The hand holding the match was slim and black, as if the person was wearing long gloves. The little flame was raised to a smiling face; it was a woman, with painted red lips and dark, piercing eyes. Her pale face stood out against the darkness at her back, but the rest of her body was lost to it, a part of the shadows.
“Ah, there he is,” she said in a low, sultry voice. “The man who almost killed the Avatar. Tsk, tsk, how rash. It’s much too early for this.”
There was movement behind her and Scar got of a shadowy glimpse of her companion: they were a lot smaller, but also a lot larger, and Scar could see two beady eyes gleam with the light of the match. Who were those people? If they weren’t with the army, why where they after him?
“Lust,” said a horribly strident voice. “Oh, Lust, can I eat him?”
“Of course, Gluttony,” the woman named Lust said. “We want no traces of him left.”
Gluttony squealed excitedly like an awful murderous child, then jumped into the river of used water from the city, splashing it all around him. The flame from the match got extinguished and it was once again pitch black inside the tunnel. The flip-flop of the water was all Scar could hear for a moment.
And then, “Come here, come here and let me eat you!”
The darkness wasn’t the worse problem, because Gluttony was large and Scar could feel the air shift as he moved, which gave him enough warning to avoid his first strikes. But the ledge on which Scar was standing was too narrow for the airbending’s circle walking and wide movements. His bending was made for wide spaces, while he didn’t know a thing about his adversary’s style of fighting.
Except for a few enthusiastic splashes, Gluttony made no particular use of the water. Not a waterbender, then. Clearly not a firebender either, or even an earthbender. But Scar couldn’t recognize any known fighting style either. Gluttony was wild and unpredictable, but also faster than he looked. One of his fists narrowly missed Scar and crashed against the wall; from the sound of it, he’d managed to damage the wall while not hurting himself at all. Only Scar’s reflexes allowed him to keep up and evade his opponent’s attacks, but he hadn’t succeeded in completing one single attack himself. Frustrated by how little space he had to move, he decided to jump into the water.
It reached him mid-thigh, cold and slimy, and would make moving a lot harder. If only he could somehow use it…
“Stop jumping around!” Gluttony complained. “Lust, make him stop!”
“You have to learn how to do things on your own, Gluttony,” Lust said. She didn’t sound like she’d moved from her initial spot.
More splashing water as Gluttony joined him in the river, and Scar only had seconds to think of his next move. He crouched low and then spun his hands, sucking the water into the funnel of air he was creating. The water shot out at the other end right when Gluttony came at him.
“Puah! How mean!”
Scar didn’t waste time darting away, but to escape Gluttony he had to pass Lust, who hadn’t done much so far to help her partner. As he rushed past her, he heard the smooth silk of her voice as a whisper to his ear, “Oh, no, you don’t, mister airbender.”
Something hit his shoulder and the pain bloomed like a flower. Did she have a sword? Had she thrown something at him? He waved a hand in front of him to grab what was planted in his shoulder; it wasn’t metal, wasn’t even sharp, and Scar couldn’t find a handle even when extending his arm as far as he could reach. Lust chuckled, and Scar felt a yank when whatever had stabbed his shoulder got pulled out. Warm blood trickled down his arm but Scar ignored it, and to keep Lust away he swiped the air in front of him. Then he did another, vertical swipe, aiming at the ceiling. Stones rained over them but Scar had expected it, and he managed to jump out of the way and avoid most of it. After another swipe, the ceiling crumbled. If the spirits were kind, his opponents would be buried under the fallen ceiling, but Scar didn’t pause to check how they were doing. Gritting his teeth against the pain in his shoulder, drenched in water so foul that it numbed his sense of smell, he ran as fast as he could into the maze of tunnels.
The best thing for him then was to get out of the sewers, because it was no place to be when you had an open wound. But a man his size walking around with blood on his clothes would draw unwanted attention, so he pushed to the outskirts of the city before he came out to the surface. The glare from the sun blinded him but being able to breathe and feel an air that wasn’t fetid was a blessing. His sleeve was now soaked in blood and he was getting dizzy, so he walked doggedly until the buildings around him became few and far between.
He caught the smell of food in the air and looked around, gripping his wounded shoulder in a futile attempt to staunch the blood. He’d never come that far east of the city, and his attention was drawn to a cluster of haphazardly-built huts of wooden planks, metal sheets and burlap. People walked around or sat at the huts’ entrances, sometimes stirring large pots that must be the source of the smells. Everyone’s skin was as brown as Scar’s and the scents were as familiar and jealously guarded in the secret of his heart as his own name was. He was standing at the periphery of an Ishvalan slum, and as soon as he realized this he turned on his heels. He wasn’t worthy of the sacred place of his ancestors and neither was he worthy of his people. He had failed to protect them.
His intention had been to walk away, but his body had a different idea. When he turned around, the world tilted on its axis and the ground shifted under his feet. Suddenly he was looking at the sky, white-grey and so unlike the powdery blue of his youth. Darkness ate away at the edges of his vision field, and then swallowed him whole.